The National Front and its allies across Europe appear to be on the verge of seizing control of the European Parliament and potentially naming its president. Such a stunning victory over the Left would be unprecedented since the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in the 1990s.
Former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon recently said that voting for the far-right National Front could be “acceptable.” This is a code-word for Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Front that opposes immigration and euro common currency are the leading party in the polls, so French welfare-state politicians better get on board with the “dump the euro” movement or be wiped out in the next election. With at least one in four French voters ready to support the National Front, Ms. Le Pen is forming a Tea Party-type coalition with conservatives in the United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Nordic states. The National Front and its allies seem positioned to shock the world by winning control of the 766 seats European Parliament next year.
François Charles Armand Fillon was the chief architect of expanding the French welfare state over the last decade. As Minister of Labour in 2002, he pushed through the controversial French 35-hour work week law and lowered the age of full retirement in France to 55 years old. In 2005, as Minister of National Education he led the adoption of the first “common core curriculum”, referred to as Fillon law on Education. He was politically rewarded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy with appointment as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012.
Five years of brutally increasing economic crisis and rising unemployment has caused anti-European rhetoric and calls for greater economic protectionism across France. During that same period, support for the National Front rose from less than 5% to 17.9% in the 2012 Presidential elections, and possibly to over 30% today. Before the last election, former President Sarkozy began reaching out to the National Front by calling for curbs on Muslim immigrants and protection of European industry from “unfair” Asian competition.
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